Donald Trump would finger millions of African-Americans and Latinos under his plan to impose stop-and-frisk policing on the United States. (Photo: Getty)

Donald Trump reached out to African-Americans with the admonition: “What have you got to lose?” As it turns out, plenty, starting with freedom. Trump has endorsed both racial profiling and “stop-and-frisk” policing and would impose it nationwide if elected president.

Rudolph Giuliani, a close Trump advisor, imposed “stop-and-frisk” policing during his tenure as Republican New York City mayor.

The policy caused an uproar among civil liberties groups and minorities, who were overwhelmingly targeted by police.

Under Giuliani, police could stop and search anyone on the street without probable cause.

Stop and frisk works. Instead of criticizing @NY_POLICE Chief Ray Kelly, New Yorkers should be thanking him for keeping NY safe.

In a landmark 2013 decision, a New York federal court found the policy violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. It was also found to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the ruling, Judge Shira Scheindlin called the policy “demeaning and humiliating” for African-American communities.

“No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life,” she wrote.

Yet, Trump appeared in Cleveland at a Fox News Town Hall with Sean Hannity and endorsed the policy.

“I see what’s going on in Chicago,” he said. “I think stop-and-frisk in New York City, it was so incredible the way it worked.”

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“Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York was incredible, the way that worked, so I think that could be one step you could do,” he said.

Trump also tweeted his support for stop-and-frisk in 2013.

As a police tactic, the policy ultimately proved unsuccessful.

Over a ten-year period, the NYPD randomly stopped about 5 million people, 85 percent of whom were African Americans or Latino, according to the New York City Bar Association. Only one in ten people was arrested or ticketed, according to media reports.

Shootings and murders did not decline during that time. Weapons were found in only 2 percent of stops, the Bar reported.

Trump has since walked back his comments. He now says he didn’t mean he would enact the policy nationwide.

Trump, however has also endorsed allowing police to use racial-profiling to target Muslims, ostensibly to thwart terror attacks.

But Muslims in the United States are overwhelmingly dark-skinned or African-American.

“They see somebody that’s suspicious, they will profile,” Trump said on Fox News, Monday (Sept. 20). “Look what’s going on: Do we really have a choice? We’re trying to be so politically correct in our country, and this is only going to get worse.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that racial profiling violates the constitutional requirement that all persons be accorded equal protection of the law, according to legal references.

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